Kantar data showed that Apple saw its smartphone market share rise in five out of nine countries surveyed “primarily due to the strong performance of the iPhone 5s.”

The iPhone gained market share in Japan, Australia, UK, France and Spain, with its strongest growth in Japan, where first quarter market share grew by 8.6 percent, from 49 percent in 2013 ro 57.6 percent in 2014. Apple’s success in the country followed a deal with Japan’s largest wireless carrier, DoCoMo.

Japan’s love affair with Apple shows no sign of fading. Even though the iPhone has now been available on Japan’s largest carrier, NTT DoCoMo, for a number of months Apple still accounts for more than 40% of sales on the network. The success of the iPhone is also filtering through to the iPad, with almost a quarter of Japanese iPhone owners also owning an iPad. With smartphone penetration in Japan lagging well behind Europe and the US, Japan will remain a key growth market for Apple …

The iPhone did, however, lose market share in the USA, China, Germany and Italy. Its market share in the U.S. fell from 43.7 percent in the first quarter of last year to 35.9 percent in the same period this year, a drop of 7.8 percent.

As ever, total market share is more of a point of interest than a key metric for Apple. Market share figures measure sales across all smartphones, from the most basic to top-of-the-line models. Apple competes only at the top end of the market, so growth at the bottom end will dilute the company’s market share despite the fact that iPhone sales continue to grow.

In the quarter in question, worldwide iPhone sales grew from 37.4M to 43.7M, an increase of almost 17 percent. While Apple’s smartphone market share in China fell by 5.4 percent, for example, actual iPhone sales grew by 28 percent.

But don’t you think that market share reflects consumer trends, and ultimately where app developers look to market apps in? Tipping my hat to the fact that all phone sales are rising, I can’t help but think that what is trending is what is actually important. Especially if you take a step back and realize that all these new phones, even many of the ‘cheap’ droids, are great devices. Look at the OnePlus One on it’s way out, it looks like a fantastic phone and it would fit in that ‘cheap’ bracket at under $300 off contract.

I understand that currently a higher percentage of iphone users are more willing to shell out cash for ‘premium’ apps, but many apps are free and get revenue from advertising and from data mining. As Android keeps gaining in market share percentage I cant help but think that developers will follow making the iphone look a little less appealing.

frankman91, trends matter, but I’m not sure how many apps folks who get the cheap/free droids are going to be buying. iOS, even though it has far smaller market share, still holds the upper hand in developer profitability. That speaks a ton about who is actually buying lots of apps. You can have a billion Android users who never buy a single app, or only download a couple free apps – it won’t help the app ecosystem one bit. Have to remember, China has hundreds of millions of people who by American standards would be considered to be quite poor. They are taking the free/super cheap smartphones and not contributing much to the ecosystem.